Miki Garcia

Miki Garcia was appointed Director of the Arizona State University Art Museum in December 2017 where she oversees a 48,000 square foot museum facility designed by Antoine-Predock, that charges no admission. The Museum boasts 15,000 objects and presents slate of world-class exhibitions, programs and publications that center art and artists in the service of social good and community wellbeing. She was previously the Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara from 2005-2017. Prior to this, she worked at the Public Art Fund, N.Y. from 2001 to 2004. From 1999 to 2001 Garcia was a Curatorial Associate at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego and has also worked at the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin and the San Antonio Museum of Art.

Garcia has worked with numerous emerging as well as internationally recognized artists including, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Assume Vivid Astro Focus, Sanford Biggers, Michele O’Marah, Mickalene Thomas, Dasha Shishkin, Tam Van Tran, and Mario Ybarra, Jr. She has also completed numerous scholarly and professional publications and has taken part in juries and guest lectures, the most recent being Expo Chicago; School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Curatorial Leadership Summit, Armory Show; American Alliance of Museums; Artadia: The Fund for Art and Dialogue; Creative Capital and the National Endowment for the Arts. She sits on the Board of Trustees for the Association of Art Museum Directors; the Vassar College Frances Lehman Loeb Museum Leadership Council; and the Exhibition Committee for American Federation for the Arts.

In 2022, she was named one of the 48 Most Intriguing Women of Arizona and participates in ASU’s Women in Philanthropy. Originally from the border town of Brownsville, Texas, Garcia holds a BA from Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY and a MA from the University of Texas at Austin. She speaks English, Italian and Spanish, and is passionately committed to the transformation of art museums to be more equitable and civically accountable.